Lift The Ban And Take RPK To Court

A Kadir Jasin

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[The Revised and Updated Version]

RAJA Petra Kamarudin’s Malaysia Today news portal has been blocked for more than a week now. The call for the government to justify its action is mounting.

This is one more misjudgment that the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi government could have avoided had it been properly counseled.

RPK is not without detractors. He is also not without fault. But his Malaysia Today news portal, has its following because, to borrow from the lexicon of contemporary language, it kicks ass.

He has made sensational allegations against a whole host of people, big and small, and has in turn been sued by people like Universiti Utara VC Nordin Kardi and husband and wife team Lt-Col Abdul Aziz Buyong and Lt-Col Norhayati Hassan.

As a fellow blogger, I respect his rights, although at times I feel that his audacity and bravado are a bit too extreme.

But to block his website with a stroke of a pen is high-handed and equally extreme.
In doing so, the government has done the ultimate favour to RPK and the blogging community.

It increases the appetite of the public to know more about the blogs, their contents and moderators.

At the same time the government further puts into question its sincerity about promoting freedom, openness, accountability and transparency.

Above all it has usurped the freedom it guarantees under the Multimedia Legislations.

Just to kill one bothersome “nyamuk” – with apologies to RPK – the government burns down the whole house.

It cannot be a very clever move especially at the time when the government needs every bid of respect and goodwill from all and sundry.

Is the government so helpless against RPK or is it seeking the easy way out by using its executive power instead of a more transparent approach?

If the police had repeatedly gone to the court to seek injunctions to stop protestors and marchers from exercising their constitutional right to hold peaceful assemblies, why couldn’t the government or its agents – in this case the Multimedia Commission – do likewise?

After all the Prime Minister himself with the assistance of his loyal de facto Law Minister, Senator Zaid Ibrahim, have for months been espousing the virtue of the independence of the judiciary.

I am sure if the police had been successful in getting injunctions against thousands of protestors, the government or the MMC should have no problem convincing the court to issue an injunction against one person namely RPK.

More so when the order to block access to RPK’s portal came not from the Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications.

Shaziman Abu Mansor, the minister in charge of the MMC had denied issuing the order. I hope he’s not hiding his hands after throwing the stones.

After all RPK is not “penembak curi” (sniper) as Shaziman had once accused bloggers of. Malaysia Today is not an anonymous site and RPK is one of the visible bloggers in the land.

Shaziman had claimed that he was abroad when the ban was enforced. He denied that the decision was his.

On Aug. 28, Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar defended the move saying that Malaysia Today had published "libelous, defamatory and slanderous" statements.

Is Syed Hamid, a lawyer and minister, enjoys the same power and privileges as the judges to rule that Malaysia Today is guilty of libel, defamation and slander?

Or would he now claim that he had been quoted out of context?

So the question who pulls the trigger on Malaysia Today remains?

It’s still not too late for the shooter, whoever he or she may be, to lift the blockade and go to the court to get an injunction against Malaysia Today and RPK. If he disobeys, fine him or throw him in jail.

After all, RPK’s rabble rousing and cyber anarchy are not new. He was as vocal when Anwar Ibrahim was sacked from Umno and the government in 1998 but nobody muzzled him despite the government then was accused of dictatorship.

That it should happened now when the mantra is freedom, openness, accountability and transparency is detestable to say the least.

Why Implicate Umno Members?

AND miscalculation continues to pile up. The latest to join the bandwagon is Deputy Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak when he tendered an apology on behalf of Umno for an “unwarranted” statement made by Bukit Bendera Umno division chief Ahmad Ismail.

During the heat of the recent Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election in which the BN lost badly, Ahmad had described the non-Bumiputeras as immigrants.

Mohd Najib, was quoted by The Sun newspaper as saying that Umno has never considered non-Malays as immigrants as they enjoy full rights as Malaysian citizens.

But nevertheless he extended the party’s apology because the statement was made by an Umno divisional leader.

To my mind, it would have been sufficient for Mohd Najib to order Ahmad to make a personal apology instead of implicating every Umno member in this whole shameful affair.

After that Mohd Najib and all other responsible Umno VIPs should put Ahmad on trial and sack him if necessary.

I am ashamed being associated with the Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Bersatu and as a Melayu I am very very disappointed with Mohd Najib. He and his fellow Umno VIPs should stop turning Umno into a party of apologists.